


Eighty-three percent and counting

by lolamit



Series: Tales from the Pearl of Africa [3]
Category: The Book of Mormon - Ambiguous Fandom, The Book of Mormon - Parker/Stone/Lopez
Genre: (kinda), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Holding Hands, Hurt/Comfort, Kevin should just trust his goddamn gut, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:15:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23271571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lolamit/pseuds/lolamit
Summary: Kevin doesn’t bother turning around to see whoever is approaching him by the riverside, he is eighty-three percent certain he already knows who it is, eleven percent too uninterested to care, and six percent hopeful it’s a hungry leopard looking for dinner.Eighty-three percent of him is usually right.
Relationships: Elder "Connor" McKinley/Kevin Price
Series: Tales from the Pearl of Africa [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1645078
Comments: 7
Kudos: 47





	Eighty-three percent and counting

“Did you ever wish you weren’t Mormon when growing up?”

Kevin doesn’t bother turning around to see whoever is approaching him by the riverside, he is eighty-three percent certain he already knows who it is, eleven percent too uninterested to care, and six percent hopeful it’s a hungry leopard looking for dinner. 

Eighty-three percent of him is usually right.

“Sure,” says Connor as he sits down next to Kevin, crossing his legs and playing with the dewy grass. “Why do you ask?”

Kevin isn’t sure why, but for the past few days, the thought has been pestering him for an answer. Loud and obnoxious and demanding in his head, craving his undivided attention from sunrise to Hell Dream, on and on and on and on. “Just curious,” he says, watching small waves peacefully wash ashore in the pink-orange hue of the setting sun. 

Connor hums quietly, following Kevin’s gaze until they’re both staring straight ahead instead of acknowledging each other’s presence. It was something they did a lot, Kevin realizes. Sitting in silence without it being awkward or weird or forced. Everything about Connor was easy like that.

Well, most things, anyway. 

“I used to,” Kevin admits after a while, earning a wistful look from his former District Leader. “But now that we’ve been shut down it’s like, I don’t know what to feel.”

“You seem quite content without the rules and all,” Connor smiles, but it’s too cautious and deliberate to be comforting and Connor seems to notice as the corners of his mouth turn again. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Kevin considers him for a moment, not sure that he wants to but desperate to sort his thoughts out. If he could do it by himself, he would but his brain has been working nonstop for days and he can’t seem to come to a conclusion alone anyway. Perhaps Connor could shine some light on why Kevin’s soul feels two times smaller than usual.

“I don’t think I want to be a Mormon anymore,” he says, digging his nails into the ground beneath him. “I think I’m going to leave the Church once we go back.”

Connor smiles again, smaller but intensely and Kevin can see emotions beyond concern and melancholy dancing in his eyes. “Me too,” he says, with stifled excitement and longing. “I’ve thought about it for a while now.” 

“Really?” says Kevin. “You’re such a stickler for the rules, I would’ve guessed you’d die Mormon.”

“Abiding rules doesn’t make a difference if Heavenly Father doesn’t accept you, so,” Connor shrugs. “I might as well accept myself and hope for the best.” 

Kevin watches him as he speaks, searches his face but comes up short of any new findings. There is that wistful remorse, the meek and solemn determination, and the everlasting yearning all mixed together and scattered across his face in hundreds of golden freckles, but nothing new, nothing Kevin hasn’t cataloged already. 

“God’s a dick,” says Kevin casually and can’t help but smile at Connor’s widened eyes. 

“ _Language_ , Elder,” says Connor, but Kevin can tell he’s holding back a laugh. “Just because you don’t believe in Him anymore doesn’t mean I’m not trying to make good still.”

“What would you have to do then,” Kevin turns his gaze back to the river, “for him to accept you?”

Connor turns his head too, tilting it to one side as he thinks. The waves fill the silence between them until he turns back to Kevin with a shrug. “Be straight,” he says. “I suppose.”

It feels odd hearing it like that, Kevin thinks. He knows Connor likes and always has liked boys, all of them knew, but the words had never really been spoken out loud, mostly silently assumed on the Elders’ part and quietly appreciated on Connor’s. There isn’t that much to it, either. Connor is gay and Kevin might be, or he might not be, he isn’t fully sure. About eighty-three percent of him is certain he likes Connor in far too compromising ways for him to be straight, eleven percent doesn’t really care at all, and six percent is still holding onto the last remnants of the poster child for Mormonism. 

Eighty-three percent of him is usually right and he’s given up that fight weeks ago either way. 

“Sounds easy enough,” says Kevin, his voice a bit too morose to convey the intended sarcasm and he quickly turns his head, expecting Connor’s brows to be knitted together in the way that left a cold, aching feeling in the pit of Kevin’s stomach. 

To his surprise, Connor is smiling. Laughing, even, as he leans back on the ground until his head is resting on the soft grass and his eyes are level with the gradually darkening sky. 

“You’re telling me,” he says, patting the ground beside him without moving his eyes and Kevin recognizes the gesture, lying down next to him. The sun is almost completely set, and Kevin thinks he can spot stars on the still pinkish heaven. It reminds him of Connor’s freckles and his mouth twitches in an involuntary smile. “If I got a cent for every time I prayed to be _cured_ , I’d be rich enough to actually help the people in Kitguli.” 

“You _are_ helping, though,” reminds Kevin. “You’re building that church, teaching the kids, spreading hope. Money is only going to last so long; you’re shaping a community that goes way beyond rich and poor.” 

Connor’s head is tilted toward Kevin and he can feel the Elder’s eyes watching him closely. Kevin doesn’t dare face him, there is something inherently terrifying about lying only inches apart from Connor McKinley. 

“That’s,” Connor turns his head back to the sky as he thinks for a moment, “very kind of you, Elder.”

Kevin doesn’t answer because he is fairly certain that he can feel the back of Connor’s hand brush against his own and neither of them instinctively jerked away. Instead, they lie in silence and Kevin doesn’t know what’s going through Connor’s head, but he desperately wants to know if he’s feeling the same electricity along his spine and the warmth in his stomach. 

The sun has set, the sky still dimly lit up in a mesmerizing glow that Kevin had only ever seen in Uganda. Sunsets in Utah were mundane and boring, nothing like the ethereal beauty playing before his eyes. If this were a movie, Kevin thinks, they would both turn to look at each other until someone leaned in close enough for their lips to meet. 

This isn’t a movie, though, Kevin has been brutally reminded of that many times since arriving a few months ago. Uganda is nothing like the Lion King, not that he ever really suspected it anyway. Disney is nice and comforting until you’re living amid a plot based on a Shakespearean tragedy, whoever thought that was a good idea might as well just kick Kevin to the curb straight away. Not that he’d put up much of a fight, Kevin may be a loose cannon, but he knows when to fold. 

That’s another thing Kevin has learned since his arrival in Kitguli. Since his encounter with the General, anyway. 

“Why did you wish you weren’t Mormon?” Connor asks after Kevin isn’t sure how long. “Weren’t you the epitome of a Mormon child, and all that?”

Kevin laughs, the sound surprises him more than it probably should. “I was the best Mormon you’d ever meet,” he says, feeling Connor’s eyes on him again. “But I wasn’t happy.”

“No?”

“No, I,” he pauses briefly, considering his words, “I think happiness requires freedom, and I was deprived both.” 

Connor’s hand moves slightly, and it isn’t until Kevin feels a finger wrap around his pinky that he realizes what’s happening. His heart speeds for a million reasons yet manages to skip every other beat, resulting in far too erratic breathing to be considered normal. Connor doesn’t say anything about it, though, he just holds onto Kevin’s little finger and it is everything and nothing all at once. 

“Me too,” whispers Connor then, and Kevin glances quickly at the boy lain next to him, to find he’s doing the same. “I like it better here.”

Kevin surrenders trying to look anywhere but directly at Connor and takes the opportunity to search his face again. There is still remorse, determination, and yearning clear as day, but there’s also something resembling hope, or maybe desire, or maybe even – Kevin barely dares consider it – love. 

“But you’re not free,” says Kevin, “if you’re still following the rules.”

“Freedom is what you make it,” says Connor, a smile on his lips that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “I don’t do all that because the Church wants me to. I’ve made the rules my own, so I get to add and remove and follow and break. There’s no right or wrong, really.”

“Is that why you haven’t freaked out about how late it is yet?” 

“Most definitely,” laughs Connor. “Thanks for reminding me, though. We should probably get back before we’re lion food.” 

Kevin’s lips twitch involuntarily again, and Connor definitely notices. 

“What,” he asks, his eyes smiling. “Do lions not hunt at night or something?”

“No, they do,” says Kevin, and Connor’s eyes fill with surprised pride before Kevin continues. “They usually stick to the savannah, though.”

“Whatever,” Connor rolls his eyes. “Alligators then.”

“Try crocodiles.”

“Jesus, fine. Before we’re crocodile food then.”

“They’re not that common in rivers actually-“ 

Connor interrupts him with a shove and a scowl, and Kevin realizes his pinky is still burning hot despite not touching Connor anymore. 

“You’re insufferable,” says Connor, leaning on his elbow as he looks down on Kevin still on the ground. 

“Yet you’re still here.”

“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread,” Connor says softly, so softly that Kevin nearly disregards the meaning in his words. “I’m quite dumb that way.” 

Kevin shakes his head to the best of his ability, sitting back up and looking back at Connor. “I think you’re brave,” he says and he means and he fears it sounds disingenuous. “It takes courage to run after crazy and defiant, not a fool. Well, perhaps a courageous fool, but what’s it matter, really.”

Connor sits up next to him, a smile on his lips as he gets on his feet, offering a helping hand that Kevin can’t refuse. He holds on for just a second too long and hopes Connor doesn’t notice, and if he does, doesn’t mind. 

“Let’s go home,” says Connor, and they walk in pleasant silence at a safe distance yet close enough that their hands would touch if Kevin only reached out a little. His pinky is still burning and something about the warmth is so familiar, so comforting that he longs for it to happen again. 

It wouldn’t tonight, though. That he is sure of, but Kevin is – despite what many may think – well-versed in patience and he is more than happy to wait. 

Once they reach the hut, the moon is high and bright in the sky and the stars are glistening just like Connor’s eyes when he’s smiling genuinely. And he is, when Kevin closes the front door behind them and Connor’s hand is resting on the doorknob to his and Elder Thomas’s room, he is smiling and Kevin thinks he sees constellations in the blue. 

Although the house is dark and the only light is provided by the moonlight through a small window, Kevin is eighty-three percent sure Connor doesn’t want the night to end either, eleven percent too tired to care, and six percent worried that Connor doesn’t reciprocate whatever feelings are inhabiting Kevin’s chest. 

Connor lets go of the doorknob and is in front of Kevin in less than a second and thank heavens Kevin’s brain is just a bit too weary to process what is happening as Connor wraps his arms around him in a gentle hug because now that his mind has caught up, Kevin realizes he wouldn’t mind kissing Connor instead. 

A minute and a heartbeat passes before Connor pulls away, retreating back to his room without a word but stops before closing the door, a smile Kevin can’t quite decipher but hopes is something similar to the one on his own lips. 

“Goodnight, Kevin,” he whispers. 

“Goodnight, Connor.”

The door closes and Kevin is stood alone with his thoughts. Eighty-three percent of him is usually right, and Heavenly Father does he hope they are.

**Author's Note:**

> oh hey, look who's substituting studying with a disgustingly fluffy fic
> 
> Gotta stay busy in these uncertain times, I hope you're all safe and secure, wherever you are. Don't be stupid, have sympathy, and wash your goddamn hands, kids. 
> 
> Thank you times a million for reading, and please leave a comment or kudos if you enjoyed it! More than anything though, take care, of yourself, your family, friends. Everyone, really.


End file.
